BIRMINGHAM, Ala (Reuters) - Alabama Governor Robert Bentley said on Friday he would work to revise the state's tough new immigration law following embarrassing incidents of foreign workers being detained because they were not carrying sufficient identification.Alabama promises revisions to tough immigration law - Yahoo! News

Alabama should not apologize for the fact that car-company employees were detained for not having their papers available on request.
The Immigration and Nationality Act requires all aliens 18 years and older to carry their green card at all times. It is the car company's responsibility to ensure its employees comply with our laws

Illegal immigration is a crime but being in U.S. is not a crime? Thats like saying breaking into my house is a crime but being in my house is not?
U.S. troops can raid civilian Iraqi and Afghanistan homes looking for suspected terrorist terrorizing women and children but cannot raid homes in U.S. suspected of harboring Illegal Aliens? Botched raid in Iraq and Afghanistan have killed civilians. No Illegal Aliens has ever been killed in an immigration raid.

It's a classic chicken-or-the-egg question. Has the presence of the National Guard contributed to historic lows of illegal immigrants trying to sneak into the US from Mexico? Or do the historic lows mean that billions spent on enforcement is a waste of money?

Today the Monitor looked at how the arrests of immigrants along the border are at their lowest level since 1972, according to US immigration officials. The numbers of those arrested in fiscal year 2011, which ended on Sept. 30, stood at 327,577, compared to 1.6 million back in 2000. This comes after the National Guard was deployed to the border, first under former President George W. Bush, and continued under President Obama.

The Washington Post recently looked at the results of the National Guard being sent to the border. As the paper calculates: The 1,200 National Guard troops have helped Border Patrol agents apprehend 25,514 illegal immigrants at a cost of $160 million  or $6,271 for each person caught.

Now, the Obama administration is preparing to cut down their presence, as reported by the Houston Chronicle. Relying less on manpower, the future mission will depend more on aerial surveillance and other measures. The details are to be announced later this month, but they are apparently precisely in response to fewer immigrants attempting to cross the border illegally.

Here dey come back again...In wake of immigration law, some migrants return to Alabama21 Feb.`12 - When Alabama's immigration law went into effect in September, it sent shock waves throughout Hispanic communities within the state. Whole families left overnight, parents pulled their children out of school, and city centers became ghost towns as legal and illegal immigrants alike hid from police.

In the months since, a number of illegal immigrants who fled have returned. "Little by little, it's been calming down," said Gabby Sullivan, a legal immigrant from Mexico who has been helping community groups in the southern city of Robertsdale. But as Republican legislative leaders promise only minor adjustments to the law and with an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals hearing on portions of the law set for March 1, Hispanics are still living "with one foot out of the state, ready to flee for good," Sullivan said.

Evelyn Servin, director of the North Alabama Hispanic Coalition for Equal Rights, said many of the Hispanic people who work in poultry plants around Russellville have completely changed their way of life to avoid running into police. "People are still afraid to go out," Servin said. "Many of them go grocery shopping at night when they can't be seen in their cars. A lot of them are just staying home and not going anywhere."

Alabama followed Arizona's lead by passing a law last year aimed at making everyday life difficult for the state's estimated 120,000 illegal immigrants. The Alabama law, known as H.B. 56, allowed local police to check the immigration status of people stopped for other crimes, required public school officials to collect data on the number of illegal immigrants enrolling, and forbade illegal immigrants from entering into private contracts or conducting any business with the state.

Federal courts blocked some portions of the law, including the immigration checks at schools. But unlike judges in Arizona and other states who have barred police from checking immigration status during routine stops, U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn in Birmingham allowed the police enforcement provision to go into effect in September. The effects of those rulings are widespread.

I applaud Alabama for taking a serious approach that got results. It does need to be tweaked a bit so that citizens aren't subject to be caught up in random type actions. But over all, I think Alabama may end up with the blueprint for getting this right. Go after the employers and the illegals where they work. It's the only way to get results. Alabama experienced the sort of immediate self deportation that is the key to addressing this in an economically practical manner. Make them afraid to show up for work and make the employers scared to hire them and the rest takes care of itself, practically.

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